At what level books do children stop reading the whole thing in one evening?

[Thatsfrenchforstopahorse]

The books that DS (yr1) is bringing home have started to get quite long.

He can, and does, read them all in one go and I’d obviously use my judgement when he should read only half.

But I wondered at what level others found the full book too much in one evening?

Eh?

We stopped doing the whole thing once we got to chapter books

Children get given a book to read from school. As they improve the book gets longer. At what point / level of book did people’s children stop reading the whole book in one sitting.

20 minutes of reading and talking for ks1, 30 minutes for ks2. Children read at different speeds so I probably wouldn't base it on book length.

I think 30 minutes is fine.

I think comprehension matters more than speed here. I’m always suspicious of a fast reader as it could mean they haven’t understood what they’re reading. I’d probably try to test his comprehension in some way - eg make him write a mini book report / presentation

Thanks for replying. Comprehension is definitely okay. In fact that’s partly why I asked about when to stop reading the whole book. He likes to stop and discuss the book - point out funny things, guess what will happen next etc. But as the books get longer it’s now taking longer to get to the end and bedtime is already later than I’d like.

But the books are at that length when he can read the whole thing, so wondered when to introduce reading it in two sittings.

Thank you. These new ones have 3 chapters but they’re just a few pages with lots of pictures. It’s not a ‘real’ chapter book. It’s a purple band.

But I suppose the fact it is broken into mini chapters is an indication that some children might need to break it up.

I just know that he’ll see it that he should read the whole thing because it’s similar to the previous, slightly shorter ones.

Absolutely depends on the child, the day, whatever else is going on. Or if they don't want to read that book but maybe a different one.

Learning to read is an absolutely classic case of a marathon not a sprint.

I like this idea, it gives him ‘permission’ to not complete the book and also maintains bedtime - which is much needed.

I'm a Y1 TA and often put a little note in their homework book to say they don't need to read it all in one go once the books start getting longer. We only expect children to read 10 minutes every night too.

You could separate his reading practice from bedtime. (After all, you wouldn't ask a child to do times tables at the very end of the day when they are tired.) Use bedtime for you to read to him?

It's great that he wants to discuss what he's read in the way that you describe. I'm a primary teacher and the timings mentioned previously are a good indication. Discussion is as important as the actual reading, please keep that up.

DS is about to go into yr3 and we’ve been told he’ll be on full chapter books by then and ten mins a day is fine.

At our school the expectation was they had to read the book twice before changing it. We aimed to read 6 times per week which allowed DD to change it 3 times per week. When she was on about purple band, her teacher said now they were longer, we only had to read them once, so we would do half each night.

30 minutes is far too long for a year 1. Unless he actively wants to read for that long.

Back when Twilight was popular I read the whole thing in one evening. So it's probably a "how long is a piece of string" kind of question.

I agree with this. My kids did their reading after school at this stage, bedtime was for me reading to them. And my kids all enjoyed reading. I can't imagine making a child who struggles with or dislikes reading do it they're tired.

This sounds very similar and it’s the fact he’s used to reading it twice before changing and getting 2/3 books per week is what’s driving the ‘I need to read it all’ feeling I think.

He loves bedtime reading, my issue that he wants to read more than I think is should be really. (Because it impacts bedtime).

I could do half in the evening and half in the morning.

But I do agree with your broad point - we do spellings and homework before school rather than after when he’s got more energy.

We always did reading practice before school with DD as she was exhausted after. Eventually she was identified as having dyslexia.

My point of doing reading practice earlier was then bedtime routine wouldn't be impacted by feeling he 'needs' to finish a school book.